Hydrocarbon-based liquid fuels, such as diesel fuel, frequently include quantities of water. The water may be emulsified in the fuel in the form of water droplets. Internal combustion engines such as diesel engines typically require separation of the water from the fuel before combusting the fuel. A fuel water separator (“FWS”) or a fuel water coalescer may be used to separate the free and emulsified water from the fuel. Separating the water from the fuel improves and enhances the performance of the engine by reducing corrosion and erosion.
In conventional FWS systems, after being separated from the fuel, the stripped water droplets are collected in a storage area and drained. In some systems, the FWS may include a sedimentation chamber at its base for collecting the water. The water is then drained from the sedimentation chamber into the environment through a drain port. In other FWS systems, the collected water in the sedimentation chamber is drained into a dedicated water storage container, or in an FWS without a sedimentation chamber, the separated water is collected directly in a dedicated water storage container. The water collected in the storage container is then drained into the environment or into a separate vessel for storage, treatment, and/or reuse.
Whether separated water is collected in a sedimentation chamber, water storage container, or both, the water must be manually or automatically drained. Manually draining the separated water by end-users of the FWS system can be difficult and time-consuming. Further, whether manually or automatically drained, the water level must be continuously monitored and regulated, which requires additional and expensive control system components and software.
Many FWS systems do not include hydrocarbon filters for filtering environmentally dangerous hydrocarbons that may be present in the separated water. Accordingly, even if a FWS system provided for automatically draining separated water to reduce manual interaction with the FWS system, the drained water may include undesirable hydrocarbons.
Operatively, some FWS systems may not have sufficient water storage capacity, such as, for example, when fuel has an unusually high concentration of water. For example, FWS systems employing a sedimentation chamber as the sole water storage device may not be large enough to store an adequate amount of separated water. Similarly, FWS systems including a separate and dedicated water storage container may be too small to provide for adequate storage as FWS systems often are designed to preserve space for other related or unrelated system components. Consequently, an insufficient separated water storage capacity may lead to frequent drainage of the separated water often at undesirable times. To increase water storage capacity, certain conventional FWS systems utilize large, stand-alone water storage containers. Such large tanks, however, are not desirable and occupy valuable space within an internal combustion engine system that could be used for other engine system components.
Further, conventional sedimentation chambers or water storage containers for collecting separated water typically do not account for volume change stresses associated with freezing water. In cold weather applications, the ambient temperature may be sufficiently low to freeze collected water during non-operating and even operation of the internal combustion engine. Typically, sedimentation chambers and water storage containers for collecting water separated from a fuel stream are rigid and thus may crack or otherwise become structurally unsound as the collected water freezes.